Arts for Advocacy: Creative Engagement with Forced Displacement in Morocco

Dr Laura Jeffery, Dr Sebastien Bachelet

Traditional social science research methods do not fully equip researchers to engage with forced displacement. Conducting research with vulnerable people undertaking perilous journeys presents complex methodological and ethical concerns. An 18-month ESRC-AHRC funded project will develop innovative, interdisciplinary, and participatory arts-based methods to facilitate research and advocacy on forced displacement in Morocco. The interdisciplinary research team brings together academics from social anthropology (PI Dr Laura Jeffery and RF Dr Sebastien Bachelet at the University of Edinburgh) and postcolonial studies (Co-I Dr Mariangela Palladino at Keele University. The project’s partner organisations have creatively engaged with migration, belonging, and racism, and include ALECMA (a sub-Saharan migrants’ organisation), GADEM (an anti-racism NGO), and DABATEATR (a collective of multidisciplinary artists). The research team and the Moroccan project partners will collaborate on creative workshops that bring together activists, researchers, artists, migrants’ representatives and practitioners in Morocco. In association with GRAMNet (Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network), the research team will facilitate knowledge exchange to share best practice and expertise from north and south of the Mediterranean, culminating in a multilingual and transferrable ‘Arts for Advocacy’ digital toolkit.